If you’re one of the many contributors who are already late to the party with images of people in medical masks, you might be thinking about what content you should be creating now. Since market is already overfilled with masks and medications, there might be place for something else.. in the future. Similarly to how it’s time to create Easter pictures long before the real Easter, now it’s time to think what might be needed in post-coronavirus future.
Working from home
Is your WFH place as neat?
Work from home (WFH) as a trend will continue as many companies moved to remote work during the quarantine. This topic will be in demand for some time even if quarantine will end tomorrow. You can [make illustrative concepts]({{ “blog/2020/beginner-illustrator-tips” }}) of living office life at home: videochat meetings, workplace, combining home activities and work etc. The easiest would be to illustrate your personal experience or anybody close to you.
Homeschooling
Although some parents give up on homeschooling, this trend is evolving and is much newer than working from home. It is definitely less covered than WFH and has less competition. There will be needed diverse nationalities, different backgrounds, different number of subjects and tools (both offline like books and online like Skype or Zoom).
Home life
Cooking experiments, DYI haircuts, home cinema or turning your living room into a children playground? If that sounds familiar, you know what we’re talking about. Illustration of the lockdown life as it now is will be in demand for “how we survived it” blogposts. Footages of your everyday activities may finally stop being a cliche for a while after the pandemic.
Lockdown fitness
Yoga is the simplest fitness activity you can come up with
During the lockdown people who were attending the gym or any sort of sport events are now behind the doors. Many of them recreated some gym equipment with household items. Some were using water bottles or backpacks instead of real weights, others were discovering new properties of such items as door frames. Motivation and tools of these people can become a subject of your artworks.
Products
Setup for product shots on white background
Think of editorial shots of products that will be in high demand as the isolation moves on. This may include everything, even toilet paper or usual products to fight an illness (like paracetamol). More sophisticated products list will include diapers, thermometers, fitness equipment and various board games. You may experiment with white cube photography and light: being stuck at home is perfect for it.
Isolation / Social distancing
Isolation and social distancing during the quarantine is something unusual that will deeply affect nearest future. There’re many easy concepts you can make ranging with bored kids up to extrovert people going insane alone. This can also become a starting point for something totally opposite: people uniting after the isolation will be over. This is especially relevant for upcoming holidays like 4th of July in US or Midsummer day in Europe where people usually gather together.
This category can also include illustration of nation-wide isolation life like autonomous delivery with robots or drones. Pictures of drones with packages, drone fleets are only some examples you can work on.
Borders and travel
What if travel was allowed again?
Travel photos on microstocks were almost always top-selling content on-par with people shots. This trend was interrupted since majority of the countries closed their borders and travel is very restricted. All popular overcrowded locations are now empty. You can make sales now if you managed to get shots of those locations being empty, but photos of first visitors in such places may also make successful sales. Closed border being opened is another one that can become a trend in travel category. Think travel officers, TSA check or airport lanes being full of people again.
Another interesting niche is material for “travel influencers” on Instagram and other social media. Even though travel itself is not allowed, there’s a place for an alternative look at travel. Think camping in your backyard or recreating travel memories at home.
Sustainability
You can illustrate the reopening of your local restaurant
Thousands of small businesses around the world were shut down because of the economic impact of the pandemic. Countries decreased export of goods and services and started to rely more on local markets. This can be a rich topic for illustration or photography. Local supply chains and their development during and after pandemic might also be in demand. The ways how they save costs by consuming less and reorganizing processes will be a popular topic in almost every country.
Another topic that will need stock photos is the reopening of stores and restaurants that survived the recession. There will be changes at first like keeping distance between the tables in the restaurants or not letting inside the shops more than few people at a time. These all details are worth working on.
Ecology
Pollution will become a huge topic after the quarantine
There are multiple reports of air quality improvement over industrial regions of US, Europe and China. This can become a topic for photography or illustration too. But this is not so obvious since China and US announced about relaxation of anti-pollution norms for their plants after the pandemic. Some speculate it will cause even worse pollution that was before the pandemic. Surely it may become a subject of your next artwork too.
Hygiene
There’re many that say current generations will at least learn to wash their hands frequently because of the pandemic. There might be fruitful opportunities in illustration of this. Hand washing can be not only a safeguard, but also a meditation for virus anxiety. Concepts may include human contact, signs, soaps, disinfection liquids or other hygiene elements.
Historic illustration materials
Infographics materials
There’re already many infographics about how did we get here and there will be many more after the pandemic ends. Except of the typical geometric elements, COVID-19 infographics may include countries, people and medication details. This will also include themes of viruses, medical and treatment close-ups.
Depression
Unhappy people is the most underrepresented content on microstocks. The reason is usually that advertisements, that are target #1 for stock photos, only need happy and smiling people. But there’s also a demand for open-minded approach for illustration of the opposite feelings. This will be especially relevant since so many people lost their lifestyle, jobs, friends or relatives at the same time during the pandemic.
Vacations in 2020
Travel on the internet is what many people will only be able to do in 2020
There’re pretty much two extremes of describing it: luxurious resorts building private spaces on the beach separated by 2 meters apart or virtual travel sitting on your sofa in VR glasses. But you can try to explore everything in between or alternatives like rediscovering local travel.
Other concepts that might be needed here are, of course, completely empty resorts, beaches etc.
Politics
Politics and surveillance will be a popular topic after the crisis*
Many speculate that US-China relationships will worsen because of the controversial Covid-19 topics like limited disclosure, virus origin rumors etc. Whether this may or may not be true, there will be needed illustration materials for such articles that will pop up more during the 2020. Think about economical boycotts, trust issues or warfare as some starting points for your artworks.
Another important aspect of post-coronavirus future would be the legacy of mass-surveillance used during the pandemic. Even most democratic countries implemented some surveillance like gathering phone location data or drones enforcing social distancing rules.
Conclusion
These are just some of the ideas you may use to create new content. Hopefully this will help you to stay on track during this hard time. Thanks and stay safe out there.
